During a visit to Bartlett Farm in Concord Friday, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen said the recently-passed Farm Bill will provide support to New Hampshire’s dairy farms.
Co-owner Scott Bartlett, who runs the farm with his father, says his cows produce roughly 70 pounds of milk each day.
“We milk 70, we have about 130 total, including the young ones.”
But he says feeding those cows is the farm’s biggest issue.
“Load of grain comes here about every three and a half weeks, that’s $10,000.”
With the new farm bill, Shaheen says small dairy farms like Bartlett’s will get more protection.
The bill creates the dairy margin insurance program, which takes into account both volatile milk prices and high feed costs.
“And for our dairy farmers here in New Hampshire, there’s a provision that limits production. So that big farmers are not able to produce so much that it drives down the cost of milk and then drives people out business.”
The $500 billion farm bill signed into law by President Obama earlier this month also ends direct payments to farmers and cuts spending on food stamps by one percent.
